The sun. [volume] (Morris, Stevens County, Minn.) 1882-1895, 1887-09-22
Healthy VS.. Injurious Brain Work.


There is such a thing as mind
strengthening work. In truth, it is. as
every physiologist knows, only by work,
minds, or, more correctly speaking.
brains can be strengthened in their
growth and naturally developed. The
exercise of those centres of the nervous
system. whose functions what we call
consciousness and intellect are associ-
ated, is as essential to their nutrition
as activity is to the healthy growth of
any other part of the organism.
whether nervous or muscular. Every
part of the living body is developed,
and enjoys vitality, by the law which
makes the appropriation of food de-
pendent upon and commensurate with
the amount of work it does. 1t feeds
in proportion as it works, as truly as it
works in proportion as it feeds. This
canon of organic Life is the foundation
of those estimates which Psychologists
form when they compute the value of
food in weight-lifting power. Ii is.
however, necessary to recognize that.
although these propositions are true In
the abstract they need the introduc
ton of a new integer or combining
power before any sum of results can be
worked out.
We know that food is practically just
as truly outside the body after it has
been eaten, dIgested, and even taken
into the blood current, as it is when 1t
lies on the table. Nutrition IS issue
function, and its performance depends
on the appetite and feeding power,
which is something different from the
organic need, of the tissue with which
the nutrient fluid IS brought into con-
tact. Again, any particular part of the
organism may be so exhausted by work
that it has not power enough left to
feed. 1t is a matter of the highest
practical moment that this fact should
be recognized. There is undoubtedly
point at which work ceases to be
strengthening, and becomes exhaust.ng,
self-exhaust.ng. and self-destructlve SO
far as the particular issue in activity Is
concerned.
Work may be carried too far, in
fact to such a point that not only the
last reserve of power for action but
the ultimate unite, SO to say, of the
force of nutrition, which is. as we now
believe, identical with the force of gen.
eral activity, may be expended in work.
and the organism left SO utterly power
less that the exhausted tissues can no
longer appropriate the food supplied
or placed within their normal reach.
We have said that it is necessary this
should be understood. 1t has special
bearing on the question of BRAN work
in childhood and Incidence.
just as extreme weakness and faint
ness of the BODY as whole produce
resilessness and loss of control, so ex-
treme exhaustion of the brain pro-
duces mental agitation and loss of
healthy self-consciousness This is how
and why the ''over worked become
deranged. One of the earliest indica-
tions, or symptoms, of brain exhaustion
is commonly irritability; then comes
sleeplessness of the sort which seems
to consist in inability to cease thinking
either of particular subject or things
in general; next the mental unrestful
or uncomfortable thought gets the bet
| ter of the will, even dur no the ordi-
nary hours of wakefullness and actity,
which is step further toward the verge
of insanity than the mere persistence
of thought at the hour of sleep-this
way lies madness; and, finally, the
thinking faculty. or. as we say. the
imagination. gets the better of the will
and asserts supremacy for its phantoms.
those of sight or hearing being the
most turbulent and dominant which
happen to be most commonly used in
intellectual work, and therefore most
developed by the individual cerebrum
this is madness. Such is the story
| of overwork of the brain or mind; and
il is easy to see that at any stage OF
progress from bad to worse the will
may be overpowered, and the judg-
ment perverted. in such manner as to
impel the ctim of this mind trouble
to seek refuge in death, or to so disor-
der his consciousness that he supposes
himself to be acting in obedience to
some just and worthy behest when he
commits an act of self-destruction or
does something in the doing of which
he accidentally dies. Such. in the
main, is the story of suicide from
overwork.
What, then, can be the excuse plead
able by those who heap on the brains
of the Young or adolescent such burdens
of mind labor and worry as exhaus,
their very faculties of self-help and
leave them a prev to the vagaries of :,
starved brainP We pity the suffering
of those shipwrecked sailors who, after
exposure in an open boat, perhaps
without food. for hours or DAYS, ..go
mad" and. raving of feast and pleas
ures. the antitheses of their actual en-
perience. fall on each other, or throw
themselves overheard. Have we nc
pity for brains dying of lack of food
because we have compelled them to
| expend the L very last unit of force in
work, and now they are distraught in
the act of dying?
| 1t may be a sublime ideal, that of
highly educated people; but if it should
happen that the realization of this
beautiful dream of our philosophic re-
formers can only be achieved bv the
slaughter of the weak, it will scarcely
console the natural conscience to reflect
that after all. "the survival of tho
| tittest' is the law of Manufactured.
Fortunate Revivalists.